A fuel supply device for an internal combustion engine is known from the Handbuch Verbrennungsmotor (Internal Combustion Engine Manual), Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Braunschweig/Wiesbaden, 2002, ISBN 3-528-03933-7, page 402. The supply device has a fuel pump which pumps fuel into a fuel accumulator which supplies injection valves with fuel and which is actively connected to a regulator valve which adjusts the fuel pressure as a function of an actuating signal of an engine control unit. However, the document contains no indication of how the regulator valve is to be controlled.
DE 100 16 900 A1 (D1) discloses a method for feedback control of the accumulator pressure obtaining in a pressure accumulator of a fuel metering system by means of an electrically controlled pressure control valve via which fuel [can be fed] from a pressure accumulator in[to] the low pressure area of the fuel metering system in order to reduce the accumulator pressure. Upstream of the control loop there is provided a pilot control arrangement whereby, as part of pilot control, the electrical control of the pressure control valve is determined as a function of the flow rate through the pressure control valve and the accumulator pressure, or the accumulator pressure establishing itself in the pressure accumulator is determined as a function of the flow rate through the pressure control valve and of the electrical control of the pressure control valve.